Michelle H

BA, ENGLISH (‘08)

Describe your BYU experience.

I enjoyed BYU as an educational institution, but as a cultural hub it felt so foreign to me. I was a queer pale Latina raised in a military family in Japan. I was bisexual, so I shoved my sexuality and race into the white straight category to make myself more acceptable to those around me. To survive, and to think different, I also found I needed to behave the same. My grandfather was a General Authority, so I was under a lot of shamey pressure from home to tow a pretty, thin, conservative and straight white benchmark of Mormonism throughout college. My parents still tell me I'm not REALLY Latina because my mother is white. However, she was born and raised in Puerto Rico and her first language was Spanish. How much more Latina does one get?

Describe your post-BYU experience.

I developed very difficult OCD around sexual obsessions when I was given a psychosis-inducing steroid on my Mormon mission and told I should die for god. I refused to stay there and I went home crazy with no healthcare. Luckily, my parents tried to figure out what had happened to me. They took me to a shrink who put me on medication and I slowly got well enough to move to South Korea. My mother had been telling me that if I was gay I needed to never date and remain celibate my whole life. She kept saying, You're straight. I know you're straight. Being gay was the biggest fear of my life next to having AIDS, which I was told I would get if I was gay. I had to leave to another country to start my life over safely. I taught English at a great company and I went to a liberal therapist. I abandoned all faith in order to heal myself psychologically. Only recently have I converted to Islam after studying it in Saudi Arabia. I dated a woman in Seattle who was lovely, but I mostly prefer relationships with men these days. If that changes, I'll leave Saudi before dating like I did in Seattle again. I respect the laws of all cultures and countries, which is a belief I've retained from Mormonism. I studied every religion to find faith again but found nothing until moving to Saudi Arabia last year. I was able to pray in a panic attack and feel god's love for the first time almost 20 years. And I realized some people feel afraid and all they have is prayer to keep them sane. This was when I converted to Islam. I do think that if this had happened in Thailand I would be Buddhist. I think god is god is god.

What advice would you provide for a current LGBTQ+ student at BYU?

Don't avoid who you are. You are allowed to exist in this time. Be brave. Shoving down your trauma will only make it explode. Your sexuality is a slow burn, if you're like me, and a pressure cooker at times. Be safe. Be you. For your own sanity's sake.

What other thoughts and experiences would you like to share?

My little brother didn't come out until after he graduated from a secular college. I believe my parents learned from their mistakes with me, because they cooked his boyfriend dinner and took them boating. They also said to me, Family is more important than faith. However, sometimes they get so, almost, like addicted to Mormon righteousness that they cease to practice love for me, or anyone else, their now traumatized and disabled queer daughter. I sometimes think they wish I'd go away. I'm not allowed home because my now disability, because of my mission, gives me major meltdowns they don't want to deal with. I'm not permitted to go home even in times of crisis, which has been an ongoing battle as I battle trauma and disability. Shame is so strong in Mormonism. My family still, in my eyes, cares more about how things look than how they are. It's really a shame.

Answers to the questions were provided by the alum through our submission form.

Posted July 2021